Abstract

In July 1907 the Holy Office issued the decree „Lamentabili“, which has been regarded as the first important formulation of the antimodernism prevalent under Pope Pius X. This essay offers the first reconstruction of the internal history of „Lamentabili“ as a document, based on the archival material in the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The history behind Lamentabili goes back to the censuring of Loisy's main works in 1903. The long and difficult process of drafting and discussing the propositions of „Lamentabili“ reveals divergent opinions about Loisy and the entire „modernist“ problem within the Holy Office. Lamentabili bears traces of attenuation and compromise, and it seems probable that the necessity of drafting the papal Encylica „Pascendi“ against the errors of the „Modernists“ sprang from the dissatisfaction of leading antimodernists with the formalized and tedious process of conducting discussions within the Roman Inquisition.